The goddess Bachué (in

Chibcha language Chibcha, Mosca, Muisca, Muysca (*/ˈmɨska/), or Muysca de Bogotá, was a language spoken by the Muisca people of the Muisca Confederation, one of the many indigenous cultures of the Americas. The Muisca inhabited the Altiplano Cundiboyace ...

: "the one with the naked breast"), is a

mother goddess A mother goddess is a goddess who represents a personified deification of motherhood, fertility goddess, fertility, creation, destruction, or the earth goddess who embodies the bounty of the earth or nature. When equated with the earth or t ...

that according to the

Muisca religion Muisca religion describes the religion of the Muisca who inhabited the central highlands of the Colombian Andes before the Spanish conquest of the Muisca. The Muisca formed a confederation of holy rulers and had a variety of deities, temples an ...

is the mother of humanity. She emerged of the waters in the Iguaque Lake with a baby in her arms, who grew to become her husband and populated the Earth. She received worshipping in a temple, in the area now within the municipality of

Chíquiza Chíquiza () is a town and municipality in the Central Boyacá Province, part of the Colombian Department of Boyacá. Chíquiza was called San Pedro de Iguaque until July 17, 2003 when the name was changed to Chíquiza. The municipality is situa ...

, formerly called "San Pedro de Iguaque". The legend tells that after she accomplished the goal of giving birth to humanity, Bachué and the parrot god, her husband, became

snake Snakes are elongated, limbless, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes . Like all other squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales. Many species of snakes have skulls with several more ...

s and returned to the sacred lagoon. The history of Bachué was mentioned by the

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

chronicler A chronicle ( la, chronica, from Greek ''chroniká'', from , ''chrónos'' – "time") is a historical account of events arranged in chronological order, as in a timeline. Typically, equal weight is given for historically important events and lo ...

, Pedro Simón in his book ''Noticias Historiales'' where he wrote that the indigenous people also called her "Furachogua" (Chibcha for: "the good woman"), and worshipped her as one of their main deities. Simón also mentions that the

Muisca The Muisca (also called Chibcha) are an indigenous people and culture of the Altiplano Cundiboyacense, Colombia, that formed the Muisca Confederation before the Spanish conquest. The people spoke Muysccubun, a language of the Chibchan langu ...

believed that Bachué sometimes came back from the

underworld The underworld, also known as the netherworld or hell, is the supernatural world of the dead in various religious traditions and myths, located below the world of the living. Chthonic is the technical adjective for things of the underwo ...

to guide her people.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bachue Muisca goddesses Pre-Columbian mythology and religion Mother goddesses Muysccubun

See also

References